Publicly held corporations now must disclose their median employee compensation. Those numbers gave us an idea for a new analytical approach to an age-old struggle.
Who benefits the most when a company is successful: its shareholders or its employees? Capital or labor?
It is a question that speaks to some of the oldest debates in economics. But now, thanks to a minor provision in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law, we have a tool for measuring, in rough terms at least, how much any given publicly traded firm rewards its shareholders relative to its rank-and-file employees.
Neil Irwin | NYTimes